Kreuzworträtsel / Crossword Puzzles

I liked to use crossword puzzles in my classes as a way to sneak in some vocabulary drill in a way that was slightly more enjoyable to students.  It also has the perk of being self-correcting, so no need to spend a lot of time grading/going over it.  Win-win!

The tool I have always used is the Criss-Cross Puzzlemaker from Discovery Education.  It's not fancy, but it gets the job done.

I take the puzzle that is generated by Puzzlemaker and paste it into a PowerPoint template so that I can save it and use a format that is similar to other paper assignments.  This certainly isn't necessary, but I think it's a nice touch.

I recently made a puzzle to be used as a review for the beginning of the year for incoming German 2 students.  It reviews typical German 1 vocabulary, such as school, numbers, colors, family, and food.  I made two versions.  One is easier and has the clues as the English definitions.  Students fill in the German word.  The other version is more difficult.  The clues are in (very simple) German, and the answers are German as well.  I feel like this is attainable for strong German 2 students and might even be challenging to German 3 students who are working on using the target language only.  Both versions are included in the same file, which is available here: Willkommen Deutsch 2 Kreuzworträtsel.  Here is the list of words for a key and for easy modification to tailor the puzzle to your own students without needing the retype the whole list: Willkommen Deutsch 2 Kreuzworträtsel word list.

A Whole New World

 

We returned to in-person hybrid instruction this week after 4 weeks of all online learning to start the school year.

It was my first time teaching students in the school building since March 12, 2020.  It's definitely very different.

(sanitizing shoe mats)

After all of the planning, discussion, changing of plans, and worry, I have to say that the first week went pretty smoothly.

About 1/3 of our students have remained completely online, and the remaining students are split into two groups that alternate attendance days.  So, instead of 1600 students in the building every day, there are more like 600 on any given day.

This certainly made maintaining physical distance easier.  My classes have between 6 and 12 students in them, which allows everyone to be well spread out.  

We have block scheduling, so that plus the hybrid schedule meant that it took all 4 days of the week before I met all of my in person students.  It was like 4 first days of school!  Needless to say, everyone was exhausted by Friday.

But students have generally been cooperative about mask wearing and physical distancing in the classroom.  

It's difficult, though, to figure out how best to help a student from 6 feet away and how to continue to work with my online students when I have students in the classroom.  I'm using a flipped classroom model, which is not how I chose to teach BCE (before COVID era), but it seems to me the best option in the CE (COVID era).  Many things just aren't ideal right now.

The first few days just felt weird, but by Friday I did feel like I was starting to get a little more comfortable.  It's just a very different school world now, and I think it will be for some time to come.

First Student Day

 

Today was the first day of online learning for students.  It seemed to go well!  I did not have a required live meeting with my students; instead, they were to work through the above lesson on their own.

Based on the responses I got to the Germany Quiz and Introduce Yourself speaking task, most (though not all) of my students seem to have gotten themselves to the right place and been able to work on the lesson independently, as I had intended.  

I had 3 students live video chat with me to get help with technology problems they were having, and several others sent email messages with questions, so I think communication is off to a good start.

Now the challenge is to track down those students who haven't yet engaged and see what might be preventing them from doing so!

Video Success!

After my struggles trying to record a lesson using Microsoft Teams on Wednesday, I am very happy to report that things went much better the following day using Zoom.

I was able to record a 10 minute introductory video for students and families.  This is pretty much the talk I would normally give at Open House.

I also made a video of the lesson for the first day of school, which teaches students how to ask and answer "What's your name?"

After a busy but wonderful weekend helping a friend drive her son to his first year of college, I'm back home with 2 more days of prep before school starts on Wednesday.

A New Look for the New Year

For the past 6 years I've had desks in my classroom arranged in table groups of 4, like this:

It's worked quite well for me, though there were always a few spots where students had their backs partially to the front board.  This year when I came back after summer break, the desks were in rows after being taken out and put back in for floor waxing.  So, I decided to try out a new arrangement.

The idea is to have everyone arranged in more of a U-shape, facing the center of the room.  I did this during my first two years of teaching in my math classes, but I haven't used it since.

I've made a few modifications since the above picture was taken.  The desks are now in pairs of 2 within the U-shapes, so students have a convenient partner for quick speaking exercises.  There is one group of 3 tables for my classes which have an odd number of students.  Here's what I think I've settled on:

I'm using Name Tents again this year to learn students' names and mix them up with different partners at the beginning of the year, so that has made it easy to tweak things a bit as I go.  

So far, I am quite happy with it.  Students took their first quiz this week, and I didn't move desks for that.  I reminded them to focus on their own work, and the questions are in a different order for each student, so I don't think there was much of a problem with wandering eyes.  So far, so good!

Typisch Deutsch Video Activity

Was ist Typisch Deutsch?

School started this week on Wednesday.  I'm always glad when we start with a short week because the first week is tiring for everyone.  It went very well!

One of the activities I did with my German 2 classes was to watch the German in Me video from Easy German.  

It was a nice way to engage the students in the target language without overwhelming them since there are German and English subtitles.

As we watched, students were asked to select one key German word for each typically German characteristic and to make some notes in English about what it meant:

We did one example together as a class:

We didn't have enough time to get through the whole video in either of my two German 2 classes, but we did get to several typisch Deutsch characteristics, and I think students were getting the hang of it.  Definitely something to do again.  I may turn this activity into an enrichment assignment for students who score 90% or better on the first test.

Off and Running

(Me and my amazing colleague from Bloomington HS South.  

My younger son will be in her class this year!) 

Phew!  The first 2 weeks of school are in the books.  Here are the highlights:

• Name Tents were a definite thumbs up.  They have allowed me to change student groups daily until I find an arrangement I'm happy with.  Plus, it's easier to adapt to the nearly daily (sometimes hourly!) changes of student schedules.  I do need to adjust the folding lines a little bit so that they fold flat more easily.  And I want to change the back of the German 2 tents to include haben and sein and "Wie waren deine Ferien?" rather than "Wie geht's?"  Next year...

• German 1 has learned the alphabet, definite, and indefinite articles.  I did definite and indefinite articles in one day rather than two, and it seemed to be fine:

  
 

• My homeroom loves oatmeal.  It started when they kept asking to go to the vending machines for snacks.  We talked about how hard it is to make it until the last lunch period at 12:55 when you eat breakfast at 6:00.  I mentioned that I kept instant oatmeal in the department office and offered them some.  I had one person take me up on the offer the first day, and several on Friday.  The only requirement is that they wash their own dishes, which they have happily done.  Peaches and cream is most popular.  I think bonding over oatmeal works better for me than the more traditional ice breakers.

• The $100 I spent last year buying my own document camera, Ziggi, was money well spent.  No more running around the first week, begging anyone who will listen to connect my desktop computer to AirServer.  It would be great if schools provided resources we need to do our best teaching, but since mine doesn't, I'm glad I could get it myself.

• German 2 is a delight!  They are off to a great start, reviewing nouns, plurals, and present tense verbs while learning vocabulary about celebrations and festivals.  We've started the conversational past and watched Tiba's Geburtstag.

• I started off on day one with the bathroom flowchart.  That one item may single-handedly save my sanity this year (ok, that and A LOT of yoga and running).

I hope your year has gotten off to a good start, too!  Remember:

German Name Tent

School starts in a week and a half, so I've started getting ready for the first days back.  

I haven't done name tents in the past, but a lot of my colleagues swear by them as a way to save their sanity and learn names quickly.  Now that I'm starting my second year at full time and have 3 sections of German 1, I think I'm going to give them a try.  

I started with a great free Name Tent Activity Template from the Science Duo on Teachers Pay Teachers: 

I then modified it for my German classes.  For German 1, students will have some basic beginning conversation phrases (images from mycutegraphics.com):

My German 2 students will have some conversation and review of verb forms:

Here's the link to the file if you'd like to use or modify it: German Name Tent.

Online Resources for Starting the Year in German 1

My school year is off and running!  Over the weekend I was compiling a list of online resources for German 1 introductory topics like the alphabet and beginning conversation.  Here are some of the highlights:

The Alphabet Song

The Alphabet Song with ß, ä, ö, and ü

Sesame Street Disco Alphabet with Grover from 1978

Listening Practice: Name Spelling

Learning App: German Conversation Listening

Nominative Pronouns and Sein 

Three Words: So Many Names

I'm a big fan of the podcast It's been a Minute from Sam Sanders.  On Fridays he and his guests describe their week in three words.  It's a fun challenge to think back over the week and summarize it with only three words.

School started on Wednesday, and on Friday I asked my homeroom students to summarize their first week of school in three words.  It was interesting to hear what they came up with, and it helped me to get to know them a little better.

My three words, which I shared with my homeroom first as an example, are So Many Names.  I am teaching full time for the first time this year, which means I have six classes and a homeroom.  My three sections of German 1 are all full at 32 students, my three sections of German 2 have 30, 30 and 21 students, and I have 23 students in homeroom.  That's 200 students.  I know about 25 of my German 2 students from last year, but the rest of them had my colleague for German 1, so they are new to me.  So, that's about 175 names to learn.  

No wonder my brain was tired by Friday!

Auf die Plätze, Fertig, Los!

August 10 was the first day of school, and we are off and running!  

I am so grateful that our school district started school on a Wednesday this year rather than a Monday.  The first days of school are really tiring for both students and teachers, and after 3 days, everyone is ready for a weekend.

All in all, things went surprisingly smoothly.  I am teaching 5/6 time again this year, and have two sections of German 1, two sections of German 2, and one section of German 4.  Here's how I keep myself organized:

We have block scheduling, and my German 2 classes meet on Maroon days, and German 1 and German 4 meet on Gold days.  

New this year, I have posted objectives for each of my classes, which is part of our evaluation:

German 1 started out with a crossword puzzle of cognates to discover how much German they already know.

and looking at some false friends:

German 2 started by writing about themselves and interviewing two of their tablemates:

And in German 4, we talked about duzen and Siezen with this video from Easy German:

German Sentence Starters Posters

Here's my schedule for the day: driving children to one cross country practice and two soccer practices, all at different times and at two different schools.  It must be the week before school starts!  In between, I'm trying to get a little school work done.  

I little while ago I found these great Sentence Starters Posters online.  There are 72 different words and phrases, 3 to a page. 

I think they'll be great for my German 4 students to help them in their writing.  The site has some other German posters, including numbers, seasons, and weather.  

Syllabus Scavenger Hunt

I've been updating the syllabus for my classes next year.  Every year it gets a little easier because I'm more satisfied with what I used the year before.  The big challenge is to try to put all the important information into a format that students will actually read.  

Here's what my German 1 syllabus looks like:

This year I've decided to do a scavenger hunt activity with highlighters on the first day of school with my German 1 and 2 classes.  

Students will highlight the answers to the top 4 frequently asked questions - things like

"Did I miss anything when I was absent?" 

"If I get a lower score on my test retake, can I keep my first score?"

"What's the website for the online textbook?"

I hope this activity will push students to read the syllabus more closely and reduce the number of times I have to answer these questions.  When they ask, I can just remind them that the answer is highlighted on their syllabus, and hopefully they will learn to be more self-reliant.  

First Week

The first week of school is in the books!  Whew!

By the end of the week, it was hard to say who was more exhausted - teachers or students.  Overall, though, it went smoothly.

I have 3 sections of German 1 this year, all of which are full with 31 or 32 students.  I didn't teach German 1 last year, and it's fun to have students who are just starting out in the language.  It's also tiring because everything is unfamiliar to them, so I spend a lot of the first week explaining things and teaching procedures.  There's also a really wide range of students - some are 9th graders who have never taken a language before, and others are 11th graders who have had several years of another language.  It's challenging, but good.

In contrast, all but 3 of the German 3/4 students were my students last year since I taught all of the sections of German 2 and German 3.  So, they are very familiar to me, and we really hit the ground running.  I've only seen them twice so far since those classes meet on the B day of our A/B block schedule, but we have already interviewed and introduced a classmate, reviewed the Perfekt, Präteritum, and Plusquamperfekt, and read half of a story about a girl's summer break trip.  

And, all of the students at my school have now received their laptops.  On Friday I had my first year classes all using them to access Quizlet, and everyone (except the 1 student who left his at home) was able to log on and use Quizlet without any internet problems.  I was amazed!

Up next week: pretests, using the new digital textbooks, and each level's first quiz.  

Ready or Not

The first day of school is here!  We had teacher days on Thursday and Friday, but today is the first day back with students.  I think I'm pretty much ready to go.

Since we have block scheduling and I am part-time, I only have two sections of German 1 on the first day.  

Distribution of students' HP Windows tablet computers starts right away today with the seniors.

If all goes well, all of the students will have their devices by the end of the week!

And they will use those devices to take a pre-test next week.

A Week from Today...

school starts again for me!  Whoa!  Summer has gone by really fast, but it's been a good one. I've gotten quite a bit of work done for school, and hopefully it will make the start of the year a little less hectic.

And I'm looking forward to this new school year.  There are several changes:

New books!  After a long selection process, we have a new textbook with materials that I think will work well for our students and give me more resources for effective teaching.  

New devices!  My school is going 1-1 and all students will get an HP tablet computer at the beginning of the year.  I'm sure it will take time to get everyone up and running on it, and there are pros and cons, but I am looking forward to my students having access to Quizlet and Duolingo every day, not just when it's our turn for the iPad cart.

New room!  I'll be in my third classroom in three years, but it's a nice big room and has a window.  Plus, moving has forced me to clean out and reorganize things, which is always a good thing.

New classes!  Our German program is growing!  There will be an additional section of German 1, German 2, and German 3 this year.  And we will be offering German 4 (together with German 3) for the first time since I have been at BHSN.  

I feel mostly ready, which is a good thing since Aug. 3 (first student day) is almost here!

Starting class, Starting the Year

I'm a big fan of starting class with a bell ringer/do now (I call it Macht jetzt) activity.  It gives students something relevant to do as soon as the bell rings to get them on task, thinking about German, and ready to learn, even if I am taking attendance or talking to an individual student.  It sets a good tone that my classroom is a place where we are working and learning and thinking for the whole eighty-five minutes of class (hopefully!).  

I even like to start out the first class of the year this way.  Again, I think it sets a good tone of what class is going to be like for the year and gives students something to do as I am helping students who are lost or have a schedule problem or all the other stuff that comes up on the first day of school.  

For German 1, I give students a crossword puzzle of German words that are very similar to English words that they should be able to figure out.  

I make my crossword puzzles at the free Discovery Education Puzzlemaker site.  

One of my big goals in German 3 is to get students describing German words with other German words they know (circumlocution), rather than translating to English.  So, their crossword puzzle has clues in German for German words they already know.

Click on the pictures of the puzzles for a copy.